Wildwater Canoeing is a discipline of canoe racing, also known as Wildwater Racing and Whitewater Racing. The wildwater time trial is the purest of whitewater racing forms - the athlete, the river, the clock.
A racing performance is the result of physical conditioning, skill and harmony with the water - and is the only sport where social paddling is necessary to achieve a peak performance. Beautiful water, scenery and companionship make the Wild Water Racing experience compelling. The competitor is free to take whichever route on the river they desire, a freedom of racing unsurpassed in the whitewater world.
Wildwater Canoeing is governed by British Canoeing
2016-17 National, Regional & Wavehopper Rankings have now been finalised and are in the annual ranking folder here and the downloads are available here. We believe we have all the results in, some are still provisional, amendments have been made to the the ranking lists and have been updated on the site. If you spot any errors or omissions please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
17th September: A lie-in to allow recovery time followed by more coffee and awesome porrridge + (Banana/ Peanut Butter & Yoghurt) - a great start to the day. Boat preparation followed with Jonnie Schofield arriving by train from Biarritz just in time for Lunch. An afternoon of video analysis and general catching - up.
Calum Gingell, Victoria Murray and Wills Fotheringham are arriving tomorrow - Biarritz to Pau by SNCF - a great service right next to the race course. Flat water training session Tomorrow and the first day's race training on Tuesday - with Neil Stamps arriving on Tuesday evening. Carl Foody a casualty of Ryan Air's sudden rush of conscience - 50 flights cancelled so their people can take holidays.... Carl is now arriving on Thursday
16th September: An early start from Ashford with Ryan Hunt and Hannah Brown heading to the P&O Ferries to Calais and the long caffeine, flapjack and pasta - fuelled drive straight round Paris, down to Bordeaux and then to Pau - back to the accomodation the team were using a couple of weeks ago for race training. arrived just before 11 pm - unloaded the Landrover and done. Great facilities - lots of space for trailers and covered space for boat repairs.
15th September: So after long months of training the first of our paddlers are now on their way to Pau for the world championships.
It was an early start as Peter picked up Ryan Hunt and the trailer at 5am prior to meeting Hannah Brown at hpp at 6.30am for yet another early morning training session.
Followed by a day of reloading the Land Rover to get everything in and strapping numerous boats on, the three left Nottingham at 4pm for the long drive to Pau.
Big thanks to Peter for offering to take an early group out and to Ryan and Hannah who have spent most of the week at Hpp sorting out food, boats and kit between training sessions. The logistics of paddlers, boats and kit going out from different places at different times is not easy.
Next stop Folkestone prior to meeting up with Jonny Schofield in Pau at the weekend.
Latest Pau Bulletin on https://www.facebook.com/groups/216485560525/ Wildwater Racing for Fun more info on the official website https://www.canoeicf.com/canoe-slalom-world-championships/pau-2017GB WILDWATER CANOEING ANNUAL CONSULTATIVE MEETING
28th October 2017, approx18:00 Chainbridge Hotel, Llangollen (straight after National Prize Giving).
AGENDA
1) Welcome
2) Attendees, apologies, club representation: Please confirm club attendance & register an interest in WWR to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before the meeting.
3) Approval of Minutes from 26th November 2016 ACM & matters arising
4) Chairman’s Report
6) Secretary’s Report
7) Treasurer’s Report
8) Senior & Junior Team Managers Report
9) National Coach’s Report
9) Motions: Items or motions to be submitted by 28th September 2017 to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
10) Election of Officers
11) AOB
Officers:
For re-election 2017
Chairman: Candidate: Peter Schofield, proposed by Julie Lewis, seconded by Grant Anderson.
Treasurer: Candidate: Simon Wright, proposed by Jamie Christie, seconded by Julie Lewis
The following are due for re-election 2018:
Performance Director: Jamie Christie.
Hon. Secretary: Julie Lewis
Executive & Regional Representatives:
Scottish Canoe Association Representative: Fraser Gormal
Canoe Wales Representative: James Wingfield.
British Canoeing - Russ Smith.
Team Manager – Paul Anderson.
English Regional Representatives:
- North and West – Mary Jean Smith
- South – Carl Foody
Midlands – Grant Anderson
Other Non-Committee Roles:
Head Coach – Paul Anderson
International Event Support – Nigel Stevenson
Welfare/Equalities - Hannah Brown
Safety – Nominee needed
Web – Neil Stamps
Mini Bus – Julie Lewis/Jamie Christie
Calendar – Julie Lewis
Rankings – Lee Gingell
Marketing, PR & Sponsorship –Robyn Webb
Each British Canoeing-affiliated club which has registered an interest in Wild Water Racing with the Secretary to the Wild Water Racing Committee shall have one vote at the Annual Consultative Committee. Evidence of British Canoeing membership must be produced.
Any person representing an Affiliated Club or casting its vote, must be a Full member of British Canoeing. Similarly, no Affiliated Club can be represented or cast a vote, unless it has paid all money due to British Canoeing.
Olivia Churchill has generously donated her ex-race boat to be awarded as a prize at the Dee race weekend.
It's a class 8 Clipper, white deck with kevlar carbon hull in good condition with all fittings (including airbags and deck cover).
The boat will be awarded to the best team result. This is an opportunity to get a great boat for your club to help up and coming paddlers. As a world junior champion in classic team herself, it seemed a fitting way to decide who should recieve the boat.
There is plenty of time to hone your team eventing skills before the race weekend, so heres looking forward to some close racing. Make sure you have some space to take it home!
The Wild Water Junior and U23 World Championships, which took place in Murau, Austria, ended last weekend, with the British team celebrating a fantastic week of competition.
Murau Wildwater Junior and U23 World Championships are now successfully completed. Team GB had a great time at an outstanding competition.
In the Sprint racing we had the exitement of racing through the centre of the picturesque Austrian town. It was a great finale with the Sprint individual events - Calum Gingell put in an extremely strong performance in the sprint finishing in 8th place overall - a massive improvement on his 15th place at the end of the heats the previous day.
Calum's view ” This has been an absolutely fantastic experience. It’s been a good experience. It’s been an opportunity to practice the same river at different levels and has proved interesting during competition as well.”
We had equally tight racing in the Ladies U23 C1, with Rachel Houston only just missing out on a Bronze medal. Rachel did really well, learning from the huge challenge the team had with water levels rising from 25 Cumecs to 145 Cumecs between the Friday and Monday with huge trees being washed down the course (dropping back to around 55-45 Cumecs durning the event as the river gradually returned to normal!)
Rachel said: “It has been a really good week. It’s been a great opportunity to come out and practice the water at so many varying levels. River reading skills were definitely tested in the classic. Enjoyed the fluctuating river levels – it’s like three rivers in one – a bargain. I now know the difference between crocodiles and trees."
We has some oh-so-close moments where a few hundredths of a second really mattered, reinforcing the competitiveness of the racing. In Canoe Singles U23 Ryan Hunt moved up the rankings in both Classic and Sprint. Will Fotheringham in C1 Juniors wasn't able to repeat his outstanding first run in the heats and so narrowly missed out on the finals. Both Jodie Ball and Lois Leaver also narrowly missed out on the finals by the narrowest of margins, and have learned so much from the event.
Ryan said of the event: “ being out at the U23 worlds has given me a fantastic opportunity to paddle on some very big water and with C1 paddlers from other countries. The support from paddlers and coaches all over the world is superb and these competitions provide experience and opportunities that are difficult to rival.
In the team events everyone delivered creditable performances - with lots of room for thought about how to improve for next year. All our Athletes did Team GB proud.
Phil Dean as Team Manager and Mags Dilai did a fantastic job managing the team. We also had a huge amount of parental and coaching support which made a huge difference.
Some views from the Parents, which we all I think share: “It has been a physical and emotional roller coaster as always but lots of determination and resilience from all. What a great team.” ; “It has been fantastic to have new paddlers and parents involved. It has provided an excellent opportunity for paddlers on much higher water levels than usual, that we rarely get back home, and I’m really glad that paddlers have absolutely maximised the opportunity to practice in such conditions.” ; “unless it’s over the phone box at Aberfeldfy we can’t compete with these water levels at home"
Everyone has made new friends and new connections within the Wildwater Community and planning for next year has already started.
For more details please see:
http://www.murau2017.com/startlist-results
http://www.timing-mojstrana.com/wp-content/uploads/Results-sprint-team1.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/groups/216485560525/
The ICF Junior and Under 23 World Championships are now well underway in the picturesque town of Murau in Austria. There are 250 athletes from 19 nations taking part and the competition is intense. Nature has presented it's own challenges - the normally peaceful River Mur was transformed into a raging torrent in the run up to the competition - goung from around 30 Cumecs to a peak of around 150 Cumecs! It is worth having a look at the river gauges for the last three months to see how the river was transformed into a raging torrent overnight.
Team GB coped admirably - and with river levels approaching normality has a great first day with some great individual performances. This shows the progress over the last few years across all disciplines with stand-out performances in Canoe and Kayak.
Today we have the morning practicing the sprint course through the town and this afternoon starting at 1pm CET we have the Team Race - we wish good luck and great racing to all our athletes.
For those wishing to get up-to-the-minute updates there is live streaming at http://www.murau2017.com/live
There is more information on the ICF and Wildwater Racing Facebook Pages and Regional Kanu Sport Stiermark
https://www.facebook.com/groups/216485560525/
Less than a month to go. Good luck to all Team GB athletes as they complete their preparations.
Current World Champion Hannah Brown, and Olympic canoe sprint silver medallist Jonnie Schofield are amongst the GB team selected for the 2017 ICF Wild Water Canoeing World Championships.
Hannah and Jonnie will travel to Pau in September alongside a 13 athlete strong squad, all looking to claim the World Championship title.
A double World Champion in wild water racing, Hannah Brown will be hoping to defend her K1 title in Pau, after putting in a commanding performance to take the Welsh Open title in June.
Jonnie Schofield, who made a return to wild water racing at the Welsh Open, triumphed in the men’s K1 on the River Tryweryn.
There is a call up for Ryan Hunt, who stole the show in men’s C1 in Bala, whilst he will continue to pair up with Mike Rees-Clark in the men’s C2.
Rachel Houston will be leading the women's C1 line alone, and will combine with K1 reserve/forerunner Louise Revell to challenge for the women's C2.
Fresh from the announcement, current World Champion Hannah Brown said: “I'm really excited to be named as part of the squad for this year’s wild water World Championships. It's been such a tough year after dislocating my shoulder out in Pau at last year’s World Cup race, so it's pretty special to be selected to race back out there later this year.
"It was great to be back racing confidently in Bala at the Welsh Open, it gives me a good platform to assess what I need to work on leading up to the Championships in September. I can't wait to go and race my heart out to try and retain my World Champion title.”
The full squad competing in Pau:
Men's K1
Jon Schofield
Calum Gingell
Rob Jefferies
Mike Rees-Clark
Ladies K1
Hannah Brown
Victoria Murray
Lydia Oxtoby
Laura Milne
Louise Revell (Reserve/Forerunner)
Men's C1
Ryan Hunt
Andrew Houston
William Fotheringham
Ladies C1
Rachel Houston
Men's C2
Mike Rees-Clark/Ryan Hunt
Ladies C2
Louise Revell/Rachel Houston
